


Heritor

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Falcon!Cap, Gen, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), bucky's got another cap to watch, captain america is an ideal and not a man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: After Endgame, Sam's got something in his hands he's held before, but this is the first time he doesn't have to give it back. Bucky Barnes might be feeling a little deja vu.





	Heritor

The shield, in its leather satchel, still feels wrong in Sam’s hands. Like Steve asked him to carry it to the car, not like he asked him to carry it for real. It’s been kind of a weird-ass afternoon and yet this is still the weirdest part about it. Steve going to spend decades with someone – who is probably Peggy Carter, but Steve’s not a kiss-and-tell kinda guy – isn’t so very strange and Sam thinks that’s going to be easiest to get used to. Steve’s been looking for a way to do this for a dozen years and Sam just can’t be shocked by it – hell, Lang told him that nobody’d been sure Steve was going to come back from the  _first_ time he crossed paths with Peggy Carter, except that he’d still had to save Barnes.

But those decades took seconds and seeing Steve look his age instead of just acting like it… it’s sudden. Not the wrong kind of sudden, just the ‘give me a minute’ kind. The 'here, go be Captain America’ thing… that’s gonna take a lot more than a minute.

“You look like you just saw Jesus with his pants down,” Barnes says and Sam looks up, startled. Last time Sam had looked over there, Barnes and Steve had been deep in discussion, two backlit silhouettes against the water. Sam looks over again and sees only an empty bench and the sun reflecting off the water beyond it.

“Where’d Grampa America go?” Maybe Steve still moves quickly, the serum’s not gonna dim with age. But Sam heart sinks when he realizes the more likely option. Barnes hadn’t told Steve he’d miss him for a five second trip, even if it had been seventy years on Steve’s end.

“Home,” Barnes says with a satisfied smile. “He just stopped by to give you the shield and let everyone know he’s okay.”

There’s a whole lot of explaining to do to a lot of people because Steve just  _up and left the universe for good_  and that’s a gaping Grand Canyon of a hole that’s not getting filled any time soon. It’s a lot of weird phone calls and Sam is grateful Rhodey’s doing most of the heavy lifting because it’s hard enough to have to tell so many people that Steve Rogers is gone again, this time for real, just when everyone else is getting back and wondering what the hell just happened to the last five years and how they will rebuild their lives. Sam has to worry about that, too, and he does because  _what the ever-loving fuck_? But just when things feel like they are going to overwhelm him again, he takes a look at the shield and reminds himself that Steve gave that to him for a reason and he’s done far crazier things because Steve thought it was a good idea.

One of those crazier things is sticking around and Sam is as grateful as he is confused. Barnes is taking all of this just fine and sometimes that’s irritating, but then you remember why Barnes is fine with missing years and coming back from the dead and losing people and you chill. But sometimes Barnes being the sanest person in the room is a good thing because he’s like a rock and Sam can see the man Steve went to war with, if not necessarily the man before that. Sergeant Barnes had his shit squared away and there are moments when all of them need even a shadow of a good NCO making sure they get through the day. Shuri and T'Challa ask when the White Wolf is coming home, but for now, Barnes is here, cleaning up Steve’s mess like he’d always done before once upon a time by Steve’s own telling.  

The Avengers, what’s left of them, are living in a house that belonged to Tony Stark, a mountain lodge in the Tetons that’s got a gazillion acres of nature attached. It’s beautiful out here, crazy beautiful, and Sam loves flying around to admire it from above. Right now, though, it’s him and Barnes bundled up drinking military-grade coffee and watching the sunrise against the mountains because they both got up stupid early.

“Why me and not you?” Sam asks. He’s been wanting to ask since Steve gave it to him and he hasn’t.

Barnes takes a moment to answer, eyes still on the pink reflecting off the distant snowcaps. “Steve didn’t ask me first,” he finally says quietly but firmly, like he wants Sam to be sure this is the case. Sam might have wondered a few times if it hadn’t been. “He knew better than that. That’s not who I am anymore, not even for him, so long as the world isn’t ending. He wanted it to be you all along.”

Sam takes it in and blinks away the prickles in his eyes that could be tears if he let them. He knew he’d had Steve’s trust, but there’s trust and then there’s “here’s my legacy, it’s yours now” when Sam knew just how much that legacy meant to him. Not the title per se, not the uniform or the shield, or not  _just_ , but the whole package – the history, the icon stuff, the well-earned reputation for being willing to bleed and die for what he thought was right. Steve had been damned careful of how Captain America got used, by him and by the Avengers and by anyone wanting to trade on the respect and awe of that legacy. And then he’d handed it off to Sam with a smile and a handshake and went back home happy and… and that’s just  _a lot_. It will always be a lot.

“Said you’d be a slow Captain America,” Barnes adds and Sam can hear the smile in his voice before he looks over. He’s not sure whether to finally just cry or start laughing like a madman, but Barnes knows he’s passing along a tweak and grins and so Sam does the same. “But he said you’d be a good one.”

**Author's Note:**

> [this was posted to tumblr if you'd like to like or reblog there](https://laporcupina.tumblr.com/post/184605453289/endgame-drabble)


End file.
